Alex Miranda is a comfortable mix of a polished movie professional and an exuberant college student, a contrast shown in both his demeanor and his mix of casual and business clothing. Miranda, a senior film major, is a producer for the newest Biola film, “A Quiet Fire,” which premieres Thursday night at Downtown Disney.

The film is an emotionally charged story that follows the journeys of guilt and bitterness of a young man named Joel and a father named David. When Joel was young, he was involved in an accident that killed David’s two young daughters, his wife, and his mother. David tracks down Joel and the two men meet in a intense scene that raises the question of forgiveness.

“We want to show that even in the most difficult time, love can hold all things and forgiveness is possible no matter how bad the circumstances,” said Miranda on the film’s theme.

The film was a class project of a three part class, which all film majors must take to graduate. Pre-production, production and post-production were shot over the course of six days in June.

“We’ve done a lot of firsts on this project,” Miranda explained. “The first Biola film to be shot on a Red camera (an industry-standard digital high definition camera), it’s the first Biola film to be advertised on a newsletter to 15,000 alumni, it’s the first Biola film to be part of Parent Relations and we’re selling tickets, and we’re having a screening, a premiere at Downtown Disney. It’s one of the first Biola films to be really advertised by Biola University.”

This degree of professionalism was of extreme importance to director and co-writer, senior Ryan Leith.

“I don’t want to make another student movie because there is a lot of things that kind of go hand in hand with a student movie and its usually poorly shot, sub-par story, audio is always bad, picture quality is decent,” Leith said. “I said, ‘If we’re going to make this film with a story that is this important I think for people to hear, we need to do it as if we weren’t students.’”

This quest for quality translated into more than a year of work on the film, countless hours, a crew of 50 students and a budget of over $20,000.

Leith’s eyes are lit with passion behind his Dolce and Gabanna glasses as he talks about his film, but the tiredness borne from the past year of hard work is etched on his face.

“We’ve always said that if we were just making this film, it would be hard enough,” Leith said. “If that was all we were doing, we would still stressed, but, you know, with 18 units and a part time job, it’s very complicated to be able to really just focus.”

Still, the film’s message was so important to Leith that he counted all the hard work worth it.

“Whether somebody accidentally spills their coke on you or cuts you off on the freeway, we have to forgive people every single day,” Leith said. “In this film we’re taking kind of the extreme and saying you know, what if somebody took their family from you? Could you look them in the eye and forgive them?”

With such an important issue at the center of the film, the crew was incredibly motivated in their pursuit of excellence.

“I think we’ve all had this pressure of knowing that we have this important story to tell and knowing that we can’t tell it kinda half-baked, we really have to do it all the way,” Leith said.

Professor John Schmidt was one of the faculty members overseeing the project and believes that this film does huge things for Biola.

“‘A Quiet Fire’ is not a lightweight film. Even though it is considered a ‘short’ (under 30 minutes), it has great depth, with many emotionally complex layers. It’s a film we can be proud of,” Schmidt said.

“I feel honored to be a part of this project; this is the best Biola film I’ve ever done,” Miranda said. “The quality is going to be the best quality ever done as of today at Biola.”

The crew has big plans for this film, and wants to enter it into Sundance and other film festivals. Leith is confident in the film.

“Overall, it’s a film that we strongly believe can go to festivals and win them and have Biola’s name written all over it and represent Biola in a form that says we are a passionate film school and we don’t just love making movies, but we love making movies and were good at it,” he said.

“A Quiet Fire” premieres Thursday at Downtown Disney at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., though the 8 p.m. showing has sold out. Tickets are $5 each, dress is formal and an after-party and discussion in the Production Center will follow the screening.